Comments on: Poet Memoirists

By: Don Share

Don Share — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:56:52 +0000

Sarah Manguso’s memoir, The Two Kinds of Decay, which focuses on her health problems and recovery, will be out next year… Oh, and there’s Lavinia Greenlaw’s The Importance of Music to Girls!

By: Jose

Jose — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 01:29:41 +0000

A Family of Strangers by the late Deborah Tall is a moving memoir/book-length lyric essay that I highly recommend.

By: GK

GK — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:54:00 +0000

This is a recently read favorite. It’s a poetry memoir YOU REMIND ME OF YOU by Eireann Corrigan.

By: Francisco Aragón

Francisco Aragón — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:01:58 +0000

I loved Gary Soto’s first prose collection, which I dare say he hasn’t equaled:
LIVING UP THE STREET. I haven’t read it in years and years and wonder
what I would think of it now. But I do recall enjoying both the early poetry
and this books of personal essays very much.

By: Nick T.

Nick T. — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:34:11 +0000

Two more worth a look: Jacques Roubaud's Some Thing Black and Richard Emil Braun's Last Man In.

By: Don Share

Don Share — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:46:50 +0000

Hey, maybe even The Unquiet Grave: A Word Cycle, by um, Palinurus!

By: Vivek Narayanan

Vivek Narayanan — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 10:22:28 +0000

Poor old Stephen Spender’s mysteriously lovely World Within World stays with me, some of the scenes (Auden in his darkened room; worshipping the sun in Weimar Germany) as vivid in my mind more than 15 years after reading it.

By: Aseem Kaul

Aseem Kaul — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 01:32:53 +0000

Personally, I’ve always delighted in Adam Zagajewski’s prose, particularly – if we’re speaking of memoirs – in his lovely ‘Two Cities’.
Also, does ‘Goodbye To All That’ count?

By: Major

Major — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:17:44 +0000

Thanks for the rich discussion Rigo. I’m looking forward to picking up some of these titles. Let’s add Nick Flynn’s ANOTHER BULLSHIT NIGHT IN SUCK CITY.

By: oscar bermeo

oscar bermeo — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:20:48 +0000

I think it would be very interesting to read Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “A Place to Stand” right after reading “Martín & Meditations on the South Valley”
Thanks for the other great reading suggestions.